Hidden hideout. Minutes after the Atlas reveal.

Converted classroom. Fluorescents hum. Dust hangs in projector light. Mats, crates, cables.

Drea paces like a caged animal. Hands flying. Words spilling in torrents.

"Okay, okay, OKAY. So you're alive. Great. Fantastic. Ten years of thinking my dad was dead and you're just... here. Running some underground emotional support group in an ABANDONED ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!"

She gestures wildly at the converted classroom around them, her voice cracking with the weight of a decade of grief.

"With your ninja nunchucks and your warrior philosophy and your secret hideout full of broken people! What kind of support group has holographic brain displays? Is this therapy or a dojo? Pick a lane, jeez."

DIRT-E's LED face flickers. "It is a pretty weird when you put it like that."

"But here's the thing that's really cooking my brain right now, wait..."

She taps her temple aggressively.

"Do brains even cook anymore? Is that still a thing we say? Because my brain doesn't feel anything, it just processes, like a really sad calculator."

She whirls around to face Donnie, nearly tripping over her own feet.

"Donnie, back me up here... we heard there might be someone who can fix this whole defected NeuroOrchid thing. Like, actually reverse it. Make us feel music again instead of just... math."

Donnie shifts against the wall. "I mean... that's what Harvie was getting at. Maybe... not a for sure or a 'hey, this is definitely happening' kind of thing, but... maybe..."

"MAYBE!" Drea spins toward Atlas, her voice spiraling higher.

"So do you know if it's real? Can someone actually unfuck our brains? Can someone make me feel music again instead of this dead static in my head? Because that's what they took from me, Dad. My music. My soul. My ability to feel ANYTHING real."

Atlas watches her spiral with that infuriating calm. Arms crossed. Expression unreadable.

"There are rumors."

"RUMORS?" Drea's voice cracks. She slams her palm against the nearest wall.

"Dad, I can't feel anything anymore. Do you understand that? Music was like... it was my religion, my oxygen, my everything. I used to make beats that could literally make Donnie FLY! Actual flying."

She mimes an explosion with both hands.

"It was like gravity looked at my bass drop and said 'nope, I'm out' and now it's just noise with math. Math!"

She kicks at nothing, frustrated.

"Since when is music MATH? You KNOW I hate math. I've ALWAYS hated math. Remember when Mr. Peterson tried to teach me algebra and I told him X could be whatever THE FUCK it wanted to be, because this is America! Donnie, you remember that, right?"

Donnie nods. "Yeah... unlike me X has a lot of potential..."

"EXACTLY my point!" She pounds her fist into her palm.

"Math is a dictator! 2 plus 2 will ALWAYS be 4 no matter what planet you're on, no matter how you FEEL about it. What if I want 2 plus 2 to be purple? Or smell like fresh bread? Nope, math says 4, always 4, forever 4. But music used to let me make 2 plus 2 equal goosebumps, equal Donnie floating through my bedroom like a sad balloon..."

DIRT-E's LED face displays question marks. "Girl, what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about FEELINGS, DIRT-E! Remember those?"

She points at the robot accusingly.

"Oh wait, you're a robot, you never had them, which honestly makes you the lucky one here because at least you were DESIGNED to feel nothing instead of having it RIPPED OUT OF YOUR SKULL by some corporate..."

She spins back to Atlas, hands clenched into fists.

"I need more than rumors, Dad. I need real answers. I'm in PAIN. Pain that I can't even feel."

"Pain teaches. You will learn."

"Oh, what the HELL does that even mean? You sound like a fortune cookie written by someone having an existential crisis in a monastery on Mars!"

She throws her hands up.

"'In the void of feeling, your strength shall be revealed.' Thanks for that cosmic wisdom, Dad. Real helpful. You know what would've been helpful? A PHONE CALL. A vending machine message. A trained pigeon. Hell, DIRT-E could've rolled his ass over with a note taped to his head!"

DIRT-E rolls backward slightly. "Hey, leave me out of this family drama."

"I want answers. Like where have you been? Why didn't you tell us you were alive?"

She paces in tight circles, tugging at her hair.

"Do you have any idea what it's like thinking your father is dead for ten years? Every time Mom cried into her Bible and wine filled vending machine... oh yeah, she has a wine subscription now, thanks for that..."

She laughs bitterly. No humor in it.

"Every time Donnie got so depressed he'd just stare at walls like they had the answers..."

"I still do that," Donnie mumbles.

"...and you were HERE? Making cryptic statements and probably doing pushups in the dark because 'warriors' don't need light or whatever Spartan poet bullshit you tell yourself."

Atlas's jaw tightens. The only tell.

"I did what was necessary."

"Necessary for WHO?" She jabs her finger toward him.

"Because it sure wasn't necessary for me and Donnie! I was having REAL manic episodes where I'd make thirty beats in one night thinking I was composing the soundtrack to God's dreams, while Donnie was so depressed he wouldn't eat for days because he didn't think he deserved food!"

"I still don't deserve waffles," Donnie mutters.

"The weak are consumed by their pain. The strong forge strength from it."

Drea stops pacing. Stares at him like he just slapped her.

"Did you just call me weak?"

"I called you strong. You survived."

"Oh, BULLSHIT! Don't you dare try to turn this into some warrior poet moment where my trauma becomes your teaching tool!"

"You know what else builds character? HAVING A FATHER. But I guess that wasn't part of your grand warrior philosophy!"

Atlas steps forward. Voice dropping to that dangerous tone.

"Ten years of keeping you safe. Ten years of them not knowing you existed."

"Safe from WHAT?" She steps closer to him, fists clenched at her sides. "The boogeyman? Snapdragon? Bad credit scores? WHAT were you protecting us from that was worse than thinking you were DEAD?"

Drea stands there, chest heaving, sweat beading on her forehead. Her whole body trembles from the exertion of her manic spiral. She's huffing and puffing like she just ran a marathon made of pure rage.

Silence. Atlas's eyes flick to Harvie at the top of the stairs.

Harvie appears fully at the top of the stairs, her red hair catching the light.

"Drea, darling. Perhaps we should take this conversation somewhere with better acoustics?" Her British accent cuts through the tension.